Donating to the SickKids Foundation

We as a people are currently living in a dark era of human history. COVID-19 among other things destroyed a year that could’ve been great for everyone since it was the start of a new decade. We may have two effective vaccines now, but it’ll take a long time before any of us reach herd immunity. Not since The Spanish Flu has a deadly pandemic made most people around the world suffer mentally. I am no exception.

However, I can tell you all the one positive thing I do once a month during such a crisis. I’d like to help people I see suffering. A lot of times when I spend a day in Toronto, I would give change to some of the homeless people I’ve walked by. Occasionally, I would donate to a cause started by Omaze even if for the most part, I donate for a chance to win a certain prize. My last trip to Toronto was right before the pandemic was declared on March 13, 2020. I was wandering around The Eaton Center and saw a booth in the mall raising money to build new SickKids hospitals. After these nice people told me what the SickKids Foundation is trying to do, I thought “why not?”. So what I did was subscribe to SickKids and donate $10.00 CDN a month to the organization and while I am jobless and currently around $3,200 in debt, I have gotten cards thanking me for supporting an important cause. As bad as the coronavirus is, the fact that such a deadly virus could make these kids even more sick than they already were made me realize how lucky I was even if my life didn’t go the way I wanted and that I couldn’t have started donating at a better time.

It took a few months, but I finally got my first Thank You card from a ten-year-old boy named Colm. He wrote:

Hi Cody,

My name is Colm, and I’ve been a SickKids patient for almost my whole life. I’ve spent a lot of hours, days and weeks inside the hospital’s walls.

Now I get to spend more time at home, and thanks to your monthly donations, I still get the healthcare I need. Some of my favourite things that I get to do are making funny voices for all my stuffed bunnies, doing science experiments, and playing with my puppy Moxy.

So thank you. Thank you for helping kids like me every single day, and thank you for always adding fun back into the lives of kids who need it the most.

Peace out!

- Colm (last name not typed to this story to protect his identity), age 10

However, for every positive message a donor to SickKids like me can get, we can also get a depressing one. A few weeks before Christmas, I received my second Thank You card, but it’s not good news. A young artist named Eleni suffered from a rare disease and recently passed away at the tender age of 11. The front of the card showed a beautiful painting she made called “Snowy Wonderland”. The message I got was from her mother. She wrote:

Dear Cody,

My name is Demetra, and the painting on this card was made by my daughter, Eleni. She was really excited about sharing her art with you, and I am so proud of her. My beautiful girl was planning to write you her own note, but sadly, she passed away suddenly in October.

Eleni had a very rare condition called HHT, which created malformations in her lungs, preventing her blood from being properly oxygenated. Losing her has been devastating, but she wanted to keep helping SickKids.

This hospital means the world to us. Eleni received the very best care from the most wonderful people here. She treasured every special experience she had. This is her way, and our way, to thank you for giving to SickKids every month.

- Demetra and Eleni

Her passing was so tragic that it made me look back on the childhood I had and realize how lucky I was because any one of us could’ve had serious illnesses and diseases as kids. This pandemic we’re going through goes to show that we can’t keep taking our lives for granted. I’ve been doing that for almost my entire life. I may never had a real job, I may be in debt, and I may be a struggling actor and screenwriter... but that doesn’t mean I can’t do good for the world even if it’s just $10 a month. I just wish I could help more. All I could do now is to keep saving money for myself and donate $10 a month to a great cause.

In the words of SickKids itself... CHILDHOOD IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR.